US media giant Disney handed £8m tax break by HMRC to make next Star Wars film in Britain

American media giant Disney has been handed an £8 million tax break by HM Revenue & Customs to make the next Star Wars film in Britain.

Star Wars: Episode VII comes out next year and sees the return of Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, who starred in the first films three decades ago.

Filming is under way at Buckinghamshire’s Pinewood Studios and, according to the latest accounts, costs came to £58.4 million over the 13 months to May 10, 2013. One of the biggest single expenses was paying the 128 production staff, who received £6 million.

Back in action: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill all starred in the first films

It was more than covered by the £8 million boost from the taxman, which was paid out under the Government’s film tax credit scheme. This entitles films with costs of more than £20 million to claim back up to 20 per cent of production costs.

George Osborne has pointed to Star Wars to champion the tax credit scheme, and visited the set in June this year.

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According to the British Film Institute, the tax relief costs the Treasury about £150 million annually. It keeps British production staff in jobs as it attracts the world’s biggest studios to film in the UK.

BFI data shows that last year, 81 per cent of total UK production spending was on films financed outside the country. Their costs came to $1.5 billion (£920 million), an increase of 28 per cent on 2012.

Disney is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the tax credit scheme and recently filmed superhero blockbusters Avengers 2, Guardians Of The Galaxy and Thor 2 in the UK.

It led to Pinewood’s profits nearly tripling to £3.6 million in the year to the end of March and the studio is now preparing a £200 million expansion that will see it add 12 stages over the next 15 years.

Last November, Edgar Wright, who directed The World’s End, said the tax break is ‘probably not that great for British films shooting in the UK. Some middle-to-low budget films will find themselves without crew because all the American films are shooting here.’